smorg

Last weekend was pretty fucked up.

I woke up with my back hurting, of course. I have some coffee, try to get comfy and can’t. I contemplate hanging upside down from the staircase like a bat.

Then the phone rings and it’s my Mom telling me that my uncle…my uncle who was like a combination brother\father to me is in the hospital with a serious ailment (one which I shall not divulge here, sorry).

I tell her that I knew — had known since Christmas about the illness itself, and she immediately moves into that area of ‘why did he tell you and no one else” what else did he say’. So I clam up, because I didn’t know he hadn’t told anyone else.
:(

So I’m sitting there, feeling like ass and wondering if it would be beneficial to drive to Nashville to see him, knowing damned well that it would be the last thing he wanted. No one wants people hovering over them while they’re in the hospital.

As I sit about the house, I go to check my email. Inside is a note from the VP of Sales and it tells me and the rest of the team that one of our coworkers was shot dead in Tampa Florida Saturday night.

This guy, Antonio, was the 2004 teacher of the year in Fulton County. He loved our products and had become quite an advocate for them. He had been an official employee for just three weeks when he agreed to go to Florida for a tradeshow.

While he was there, he was visiting family and friends. After watching a boxing match PPV at a local bar, he went out into his vehicle as a fight evolved elsewhere in the parking lot. And just like in a shitty movie, a stray bullet from some dumbass finds its way into the body of this guy…this man with 3 kids, this man who was widely respected as an educator and was already turning heads in our company due to his enthusiasm and love of what he was doing.

So there I am…in pain with an unknown back ailment, worried about my uncle and staring in drop-jawed amazement at the description of Antonio Coleman, who lived a good clean life and died away from his family in the parking lot of a bar.

It doesn’t matter who you are, how good or bad you are or how hard you fight - the bastards are going to get you one way or the other.